Latest news with #GeorgeMiller
The Age
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Sick puppy: Is Australian cinema on its last legs?
Australian cinema has always been an up-and-down affair in terms of quality and box office, with our share ranging from 23.5 per cent in 1986 to 2 per cent in 2023. And, of course, the global spectacles of Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge, Australia, The Great Gatsby, Elvis) and George Miller (the Mad Max, Babe and Happy Feet franchises) have existed in a realm that you would barely call Australian films. But I cannot recall a time when Australian movies have generated so little interest, with the latest batch of releases — Magic Beach, The Lost Tiger, Spit and The Correspondent — barely registering on the consciousness of local filmgoers, despite stars such as David Wenham and Richard Roxburgh touring the country, attending previews and Q&A sessions and appearing on television and radio talk shows. The most vivid example of the lack of engagement Australian audiences have with their own cinema is the WA-set The Surfer, a Wake in Fright -inspired freak-out in which Nicolas Cage's increasingly frazzled businessman tangles with xenophobic surfers fighting to stop him from buying a beachside home. Even though The Surfer features an Oscar-winning movie legend whose arrival in Yallingup whipped up global Instagram interest and was rapturously received at the Cannes Film Festival, it went out on just 76 screens in Australia — Hoyts and Event Cinema are not even bothering — which means it was destined to attract only a tiny audience. While the loss of interest in Australian cinema is in lockstep with the demise of non-blockbuster movies across the globe caused by the COVID lockdown and, more significantly, the proliferation of streaming, that decline is more keenly felt here than in other territories because of our size and total immersion in American popular culture. Every now and then an Oz movie will conquer the world and fill us with pride. We all beamed with pride as George Miller's Fury Road leaped to the top of the lists of the greatest action films ever made. But the default source for big-screen entertainment in Australia is Hollywood, which is why both our film and television industry have been swamped by the streaming tsunami. Does it matter that audiences are no longer seeing movies on the big screen? The Surfer will soon be on Stan, where it will be watched by many more people, here and around the world, than during its brief window at the cinemas. What it means is that Australian movies are no longer part of the conversation as they were during the 1970s, when films such as Newsfront, Picnic At Hanging Rock and The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith were integral to our national cultural revival, or the early 90s, with that explosion of lurid comedies (Muriel's Wedding, Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, Strictly Ballroom) that turned our passion for kitsch into a badge of honour. Even if a movie does get a screening it is quickly sucked into the streaming vortex, joining the dozens of series that simply never get talked about, even if they are high quality. I recently asked a group at a lecture I was giving if they had heard of the recent WA-made series Scrublands. They looked at each other, then at me with a deep sense of confusion, as if I was asking them if they had seen a black-and-white Hungarian art movie from the 1930s instead of a television series based on a popular novel and shot in Augusta. How little cultural impact Australian film and television makes once it enters the streaming black hole can be measured by Kurzel's The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Despite being one of the best dramas in memory, and based on a celebrated novel, it has barely been discussed. Here in WA the situation is even more dire, with the cross-border cultural cringe so intense that we get ignored by the country. Dirt Music, The Furnace, Sweet As, Blueback, Kid Snow, H is For Happiness – all major disappointments. Even David Vincent Smith's stunning He Ain't Heavy — for my money the best-ever film produced in WA — made pennies at the box office. Ironically, the decline in interest in Australian movies comes at a time when we are in the final stages of building a long dreamed-about movie studio in Malaga. Its purpose is to attract major productions from overseas (movies and television series) so that local talent can learn from the big boys and bring those skills to bear on their own productions. How will it look when we have a state-of-the-art movie filmmaking facility welcoming lavishly funded productions from around the world when our own films play to near empty cinemas? Loading Unless something is done about Australian cinema we risk looking like an offshore factory for Hollywood, a place that provides labor but none of the artistry and ideas. Or am I writing off Oz movies too quickly? Have we lost interest in Australian movies or are Australian filmmakers not giving us the kind of rich, full-blooded narratives that are entertaining as they are culturally relevant, as we have done at points in our history? Australian filmmakers need to once again make the kinds of movies that still audience who are still going to see sophisticated non-blockbuster films from the United States and Europe, such Conclave and A Complete Unknown, two hugely entertaining movies with a lot on their minds that managed to lure viewers off couches and into cinemas and take part in a conversation.
Sydney Morning Herald
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Sick puppy: Is Australian cinema on its last legs?
Australian cinema has always been an up-and-down affair in terms of quality and box office, with our share ranging from 23.5 per cent in 1986 to 2 per cent in 2023. And, of course, the global spectacles of Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge, Australia, The Great Gatsby, Elvis) and George Miller (the Mad Max, Babe and Happy Feet franchises) have existed in a realm that you would barely call Australian films. But I cannot recall a time when Australian movies have generated so little interest, with the latest batch of releases — Magic Beach, The Lost Tiger, Spit and The Correspondent — barely registering on the consciousness of local filmgoers, despite stars such as David Wenham and Richard Roxburgh touring the country, attending previews and Q&A sessions and appearing on television and radio talk shows. The most vivid example of the lack of engagement Australian audiences have with their own cinema is the WA-set The Surfer, a Wake in Fright -inspired freak-out in which Nicolas Cage's increasingly frazzled businessman tangles with xenophobic surfers fighting to stop him from buying a beachside home. Even though The Surfer features an Oscar-winning movie legend whose arrival in Yallingup whipped up global Instagram interest and was rapturously received at the Cannes Film Festival, it went out on just 76 screens in Australia — Hoyts and Event Cinema are not even bothering — which means it was destined to attract only a tiny audience. While the loss of interest in Australian cinema is in lockstep with the demise of non-blockbuster movies across the globe caused by the COVID lockdown and, more significantly, the proliferation of streaming, that decline is more keenly felt here than in other territories because of our size and total immersion in American popular culture. Every now and then an Oz movie will conquer the world and fill us with pride. We all beamed with pride as George Miller's Fury Road leaped to the top of the lists of the greatest action films ever made. But the default source for big-screen entertainment in Australia is Hollywood, which is why both our film and television industry have been swamped by the streaming tsunami. Does it matter that audiences are no longer seeing movies on the big screen? The Surfer will soon be on Stan, where it will be watched by many more people, here and around the world, than during its brief window at the cinemas. What it means is that Australian movies are no longer part of the conversation as they were during the 1970s, when films such as Newsfront, Picnic At Hanging Rock and The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith were integral to our national cultural revival, or the early 90s, with that explosion of lurid comedies (Muriel's Wedding, Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, Strictly Ballroom) that turned our passion for kitsch into a badge of honour. Even if a movie does get a screening it is quickly sucked into the streaming vortex, joining the dozens of series that simply never get talked about, even if they are high quality. I recently asked a group at a lecture I was giving if they had heard of the recent WA-made series Scrublands. They looked at each other, then at me with a deep sense of confusion, as if I was asking them if they had seen a black-and-white Hungarian art movie from the 1930s instead of a television series based on a popular novel and shot in Augusta. How little cultural impact Australian film and television makes once it enters the streaming black hole can be measured by Kurzel's The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Despite being one of the best dramas in memory, and based on a celebrated novel, it has barely been discussed. Here in WA the situation is even more dire, with the cross-border cultural cringe so intense that we get ignored by the country. Dirt Music, The Furnace, Sweet As, Blueback, Kid Snow, H is For Happiness – all major disappointments. Even David Vincent Smith's stunning He Ain't Heavy — for my money the best-ever film produced in WA — made pennies at the box office. Ironically, the decline in interest in Australian movies comes at a time when we are in the final stages of building a long dreamed-about movie studio in Malaga. Its purpose is to attract major productions from overseas (movies and television series) so that local talent can learn from the big boys and bring those skills to bear on their own productions. How will it look when we have a state-of-the-art movie filmmaking facility welcoming lavishly funded productions from around the world when our own films play to near empty cinemas? Loading Unless something is done about Australian cinema we risk looking like an offshore factory for Hollywood, a place that provides labor but none of the artistry and ideas. Or am I writing off Oz movies too quickly? Have we lost interest in Australian movies or are Australian filmmakers not giving us the kind of rich, full-blooded narratives that are entertaining as they are culturally relevant, as we have done at points in our history? Australian filmmakers need to once again make the kinds of movies that still audience who are still going to see sophisticated non-blockbuster films from the United States and Europe, such Conclave and A Complete Unknown, two hugely entertaining movies with a lot on their minds that managed to lure viewers off couches and into cinemas and take part in a conversation.
Glasgow Times
21-05-2025
- Sport
- Glasgow Times
Bowls bosses hope Luke Littler of the lawn emerges as sport looks to the future
Over 800 clubs will throw open their rinks over the upcoming Bank Holiday for the fifth edition of the Bowls Big Weekend, in which visitors are invited to try their hand at the sport for the first time. Bowls makes no bones about its need to bolster its younger demographic. Acutely aware of the need to change with the times, the lawn bowls event at next summer's drastically truncated Commonwealth Games in Glasgow will be held indoors for the first time, and features a shorter and snappier format. Lawn bowls is determined to address its age-old image problem (Isaac Parkin/PA) Jon Cockcroft, the chief executive of Bowls England, told the PA news agency: 'From a broadcast perspective, from the advent of Sky TV and the like, some sports were winners and some were losers, and I think bowls has probably been slower than others in recognising the need to modify one's product to become more TV-friendly. 'The bowls at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow will be shorter games, indoor, with more jeopardy, and I think we will see that same level of excitement that is being captured in other sports with shorter forms, like Twenty20 cricket. 'The sport has been in generational decline since Covid but we are starting to grow again, to reduce the average age of our player base. What we are fundamentally doing is taking our sport on a fairly transformative journey. George Miller, 75, became the oldest medallist in Commonwealth Games history in 2022 (Isaac Parkin/PA) 'We are trying to change perceptions by presenting our sport in a more modern light, and we have got some incredibly talented youngsters coming through. We have got our own versions of Luke Littlers who ultimately aspire to play in the Commonwealth Games with the senior team.' Bowls has been a permanent part of the Commonwealth Games programme since its inception, and made the headlines in Birmingham in 2022 when Scotland's George Miller became the oldest Games medallist at the age of 75. While the column inches were doubtless welcome, they did little to alter the age-old perception of a sport that attracts both powerhouses like Australia and the home nations, and teams from far-flung Pacific atolls. With the 2032 Olympics heading for Brisbane, Cockcroft sees no reason why a newly invigorated version of the sport once presided over by the likes of David Bryant, and sponsored by funeral homes and cruise liners, cannot take the ultimate step towards global recognition. 'I think it (the Olympics) is certainly an aspiration, and the Games in Australia provide a definite opportunity in the way the Olympic programme has developed, where host cities have the opportunity to pick some of their own sports. 'If there is a nation like Australia, where bowls has a significant presence, it could be a great opportunity for us.'
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How ‘Mad Max: Fury Road' became an unlikely Oscar contender 10 years ago
In the 10 years since Mad Max: Fury Road hit theaters, director George Miller's fourth outing in his post-apocalyptic franchise has become universally acclaimed as one of the greatest action movies ever made. Industry bodies like the Academy Awards do not usually celebrate action movies, so momentum has been building for years to create a new category honoring stunt performances. But even before Best Stunt Design finally becomes an official category starting with the 100th ceremony in 2028, Fury Road managed to score six Oscars from 10 nominations, making it the most-nominated film of its year, and still the record-holder for Australian movies at the Oscars. How did that unexpected paradox happen? Don't ask Miller; praise from the Oscars was the last thing he expected of his long-gestating franchise revival, and he remained befuddled by it for a long time. More from GoldDerby 'Sunset Boulevard' star Tom Francis reveals how he plays 'the complete and utter opposite' of Nicole Scherzinger's Norma Desmond 'Murderbot,' 'The Brutalist,' 'A Minecraft Movie,' 'Duster,' and the best to stream this weekend Making the 'Mission: Impossible' franchise, ScarJo vs. AI, catching up with the Gosselins, and what to read this weekend: May 16, 2025 'Who would have thunk it?' Miller told New York Times award columnist Cara Buckley in January 2016, shortly after the nominations were announced. 'The film was like last year, May, and I did not imagine I'd be back here talking about it, which is fine, you know, which is good. When you're in these awards seasons, and people have responded to the film in a positive way, then you say, 'OK, I'll enjoy the party as long as it lasts.'' As he references in that quote, Miller was not a stranger to the Oscars by 2016. Although best known for Mad Max, Miller has also made several movies not based on high-octane action or desert warlords wearing spikes and Speedos. He was nominated for Best Original Screenplay for 1992's Lorenzo's Oil, and for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay for 1995's Babe (which he produced but did not direct). He even won Best Animated Feature for 2006's penguin musical Happy Feet. But until Fury Road, the Mad Max movies had gone unrecognized by the Oscars, and Miller didn't expect that to change. 'I used to joke in the cutting room, 'If we don't win an Oscar for this…' But I was kidding around!' Fury Road editor (and Miller's wife) Margaret Sixel told Kyle Buchanan in Blood, Sweat, and Chrome, a book-length oral history of the film. 'George would say, 'No, Margie, this kind of stuff is not Oscar stuff.' He dampened all our expectations.' What changed? The easiest way to say it is that Miller and his many collaborators made a masterpiece. Despite its relatively straightforward construction (the movie is basically one big car chase, there and back), Fury Road is filled with colorful characters and detailed world-building that feels outlandish and resonates with real-world oppression. Fury Road made money in theaters, but in a year dominated by other, even flashier franchise revivals like Jurassic World and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it didn't even crack the top 20 of Hollywood's domestic box office rankings for 2015. Yet almost everyone who did see it raved about it — not just critics and fans, but also awards insiders like Gold Derby's own Zach Laws. 'If ever there was an audience crowd-pleaser that deserved to be nominated, it's George Miller's bold, imaginative Mad Max: Fury Road, a revitalization of this Australian auteur's post-apocalyptic trilogy,' Laws wrote on this very site following the film's May 15-17 opening weekend in the United States. At that early stage, Laws correctly predicted that Fury Road would win Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Production Design, and Best Film Editing (proving that Sixel had been right all along). But he also advocated that the film should break through in the top categories of Best Director ('at age 70, [Miller] delivered the kind of nuts-and-bolts entertainment that makes the rest of the summer slate look like child's play') and Best Picture ('the film is not only a great entertainment, but a work of art'). Momentum kept building over the following months. According to Blood, Sweat, and Chrome, a decisive turning point came at the end of the year when Fury Road earned Best Picture from the prestigious National Board of Review. 'That NBR win gave the green light to anyone who was hedging in the critics' groups to be like, 'Yeah, I can vote for this,'' journalist Gregory Ellwood told Buchanan. Sure enough, Fury Road soon earned Best Director and other honors from the Los Angeles and Chicago Film Critics Associations. Then came the 10 Oscar nominations, often when an unconventional competitor maxes out, but Fury Road was actually competing, even for the top categories. In Entertainment Weekly's anonymous Oscar ballot that year, an anonymous 'Oscar-winning actress' advocated for it to win Best Picture ('this movie was the most engaging on every level. It's a great example of why I want to go to the movies — to be completely absorbed in a fictitious world. And I loved that there were so many women in the movie'). At the same time, 'an Academy Award-winning screenwriter specializing in high-stakes drama' pushed Miller for Best Director, saying Fury Road 'had more cinematic gusto than just about all the others put together.' Ultimately, neither of the big ones materialized. Best Picture went to the underdog drama Spotlight (which only won one other award, Best Original Screenplay). The Revenant filmmaker Alejandro J. Iñárritu received his second consecutive Best Director award. Was awarding Iñárritu back-to-back worth missing a singular opportunity to honor Miller for a movie that is much more remembered and celebrated a decade later? Oscar voters certainly seemed to think so; two other anonymous Academy members polled by EW back then praised how Iñárritu 'turned the difficulty of the location and the story into a cinematic spectacle' and 'introduced us to a visual world that we've never seen before.' Ah, well. No one's written a book-length oral history of The Revenant, and Miller himself was just happy for his collaborators who did win — who also thanked him in all of their acceptance speeches. 'We were disappointed that George didn't win, but basically, they were all his awards in a way,' Sixel said. Best of GoldDerby John C. Reilly movies: 15 greatest films ranked worst to best Ian McKellen movies: 12 greatest films ranked worst to best Octavia Spencer movies: 12 greatest films ranked worst to best Click here to read the full article.
Gizmodo
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
A Decade Later, ‘Mad Max: Fury Road' Shines as Chrome as Ever
The early 2010s had a number of blockbuster action movies that would either light the world on fire or come and go without immediate fanfare. In the former corner, you've got The Raid, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and the original John Wick. And in the latter, there's Pacific Rim and one Mad Max: Fury Road, a movie that still feels like revelation years later. Fury Road released May 15, 2015, and was the first Mad Max movie since Beyond Thunderdome back in 1985. Franchise creator George Miller tried making a fourth movie off and on throughout the decades, but the stars finally aligned at the top of the decade when Tom Hardy, soon to be the breakout of Christopher Nolan's Inception, was revealed as the new Max. Mel Gibson played the wandering wastelander in the first three films, but the actor's age and his controversies at the time led to a recast. And that was just one of several shakeups during a tumultuous years-long production. Miller's original idea of 'violent marauders fighting for human beings,' first hatched in 1998, went unchanged years later, even as everything else around the movie did. From Hardy and costar Charlize Theron's on-set clashes (partially owed to his disruptive tardiness), to location changes and a forced production pause (and plenty other roadblocks), it's a wonder this movie exists. It's equally incredible that it all led to a critically acclaimed, award-winning movie considered one of the best of its decade and in the action movie genre. To give an idea of how eye-opening this film was, Hardy publicly apologized to Miller during a press event in Cannes for his frustration during filming and not understanding the director's intent, only to get the full picture when seeing the finished product. When Fury Road came out, it was thoroughly examined for its exploration of what feminism and toxic masculinity look like in a post-apocalyptic wasteland obsessed with car culture. It's a movie with a lot on its mind, and it's as subtle about those things as a man shredding on a flamethrower guitar next to giant speakers. But if you're not into such things, or had no clue what Mad Max even really was, you likely didn't see this in theaters; at the time of its release, it was famously beat out by Pitch Perfect 2 at the opening weekend box office. The two films could be considered the Barbenheimer blueprint: they've got nothing in common beyond both being headlined by women, but the internet wasn't at the point back then to where it was willing to riff on a perceived clash between two movies seemingly on opposite ends of the masculine/feminine spectrum. Or maybe it's just Mad Max itself that's the issue. Since Fury Road, the series has been sustained via the 2015 game from Avalanche Studios—not a direct tie-in to the film, but semi-connected to it—and 2024's Furiosa, a prequel starring Anya Taylor-Joy as a young version of Theron's future Imperator. The game got a mixed reception and the prequel a fairly strong one, but neither struck a chord with audiences at the time. Furiosa was famously a bomb (one of several for Warner Bros. over the past year), and the game's underperformance resulted in its planned DLC being canceled. (In its case, releasing the same day as Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was not a wise move, and pleas to shift the game's date were ignored by WB.) Acclaimed as the last two films have been, Mad Max is surprisingly unable to maintain a mainstream cultural presence. Time certainly plays a factor into things—unless you're Star Wars, decades between installments hasn't really done favors for any franchise—and it might also come to how easily it can be perceived as a homunculus of other properties like Borderlands and Fallout, who share some of its DNA. On paper, it feels like Mad Max in its current form is one big hit away from mainstream audiences fully Getting It right away instead of months or years after the fact. If Furiosa coming out feels like a miracle, it might be a very long shot that Miller will get to reteam with Hardy for Wasteland, a Max-starring prequel intended as the capper to this desired trilogy. Even so, that Fury Road and Furiosa get to exist at all is enough. Both films feel authored and fully realized like Miller wanted to get everything in his head on screen before he couldn't, and it's just great that what's on his mind includes lightning sandstorms and bikers paragliding with explosive-tipped lances. Time has been kind to Fury Road, and with luck, the same will be true of Furiosa when its own significant anniversaries hit. The series seems comfortable existing on its own modest ambitions, and maybe that's enough as it and Miller keep riding on.
